Diabetic retinopathy symptoms
We all grew up learning about the five senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, but have you ever wondered what it would be like to lose one of those senses? Millions of people live without one or more of the senses. Some were born that way, but some developed sensory loss later in life, often due to a disease or traumatic accident. Can you imagine slowly losing one of your senses? Which sense would be the biggest loss to you? Losing your hearing would prevent you from listening to beautiful music and the voices of loved ones. Losing your sense of smell and taste would prevent you from enjoying delicious gastronomic delights. Losing your sense of touch would prevent you from feeling a touch from the ones you love and from knowing if you were in danger, such as touching a hot stove. And losing your vision would prevent you from enjoy art, beautiful natural sights, and the faces of your loved ones. Unfortunately, it is just such a loss of sight that many diabetics have to worry about if they develop a condition called diabetic retinopathy.
Diabetic retinopathy is, as you very well may have guessed, a disease of the part of the eye known as the retina. We all learned the parts of the eye back in school, but if you need a reminder, the retina is the layer of nerves that line the back side of the human eyeball. The retina is extremely important because it is the part of the eye that does the actual seeing. Needless to say, if you start to experience problems with your retina – due to diabetic retinopathy or otherwise – there is a very real chance that your sense of sight, and your enjoyment of the beautiful sights all around you, will be adversely effected.
Diabetic retinopathy symptoms vary, and can strike diabetics over time. While not exactly an easy to identify retinopathy symptom, one of the first ways that eye doctors can tell that someone is suffering from diabetic retinopathy is when the blood vessels in the eyes start to become weak. Weak eye blood vessels can cause a host of problems, namely the fact that blood and other eye fluids begin to leak out of the blood vessels in the eyes. For patients, this can result in the loss of vision or blurred vision. Because human beings’ sight often deteriorates over time anyway (i.e. the stereotype of the old granny wearing her glasses around her neck so she can see), many people do not realize that they are suffering from diabetic retinopathy symptoms instead of the plain old symptoms of growing older.
Other diabetic retinopathy symptoms include other changes to your vision, not just vision deterioration. For example, a diabetic retinopathy sufferer may begin to see phenomenon called “floaters” in their field of vision. They can also experience pain in the eye. If you are experiencing any type of decreasing vision, blurry vision, floaters or pain in the eye, it is a good idea to get to your eye doctor as soon as humanly possible. If you do not, and the symptoms worsen, you could actually lose much or all of your site, and who wants that, especially when such a detrimental and tragic loss could have been prevented by a timely visit to the eye doctor?
If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, it is vitally important that you take your medications, perform all self-treatment as directed by your doctor, and keep in touch with your primary care physician. Though it is common, diabetes is a complicated disease that can effect human beings in many disparate ways.
Comments are closed
Related Information
